


The Girl Beneath the Hill

by Urnotmyrealmom



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Angst, Childhood Friends, Childhood Trauma, Dark Academia, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Multi, Orphans, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:14:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26784232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Urnotmyrealmom/pseuds/Urnotmyrealmom
Summary: When nine-year-old Isla Hardwicke lost her parents, she set her mind to hating the family who took her in--the Malfoys. By her fifteenth birthday, she realized her feelings were not so singular anymore, especially with regards to Draco Malfoy.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Original Female Character(s), Lucius Malfoy/Narcissa Black Malfoy
Kudos: 5





	The Girl Beneath the Hill

**Author's Note:**

> The beginning of what I hope is a good size work.
> 
> In this universe, Voldemort was defeated by James and Lily who died in the process. Sirius raises Harry, and there was no Triwizard tournament. Sirius is the DADA professor. I really wanted to focus on the romance, I'll be honest. I really hope you like it.

**Prologue:**  
  
  
  
There was nothing Isla liked more than the way the bluebells sprung up in the shade of the forest every April.  _ Not a forest, _ her mother used to remind her. Forests didn’t belong to anyone--they were their own masters. The little wood where her parents made their home beneath the hill  _ belonged _ to another family entirely. From what she could gather, that great family hadn’t the slightest inkling they were there, and it was to remain that way under all circumstances.

But  _ why,  _ she’d often ask Father on their weekly trips to the village. His answer was always the same. “Because the family who live there are cruel, backwards people who use their talents and money to hurt others.” And that was the end of that. 

And so the Hardwicke family lived together for the first years of Isla’s life. It never occurred to her that they were any different from the people who lived in Rumford village. That the reason they were able to remain safely hidden under the hill was anything more than good luck and planning. It wasn’t until the winter of her ninth birthday that Isla realized how cruel life could truly be.

It began with a cough--only a little one--as Isla made her bed one morning. Mother said it was the brittle quality of the winter air. Father joked that she’d have to have her birthday in bed if she didn’t get any better by the next week. His ribbing ended when she fainted at the kitchen table at lunchtime.

By the next day, Isla could hardly move for the pain and exhaustion of the fever. Mother never left her side, despite her own dreadful fever. Father was the last to fall ill, yet only rested when he could no longer stand upright. The last memory she had of him was the clumsy way he tied his scarf around his neck, assuring her weeping mother he’d be back from Rumford straightaway--that he just had to get some medicine for them.

It was the knocking on the door that startled Isla from her fevered sleep. Where was Mother--hadn’t she heard the door? Somehow, she managed to peel herself from the bed and waddle stiffly toward the source of the knocking. The clock on the wall read half-past-midnight, and her stomach clenched as the frigid winter air rushed through the door.

“I’m terribly sorry, little miss,” an impossibly high voice apologized from the doorway. The creature it belonged to was even more inexplicable, with giant round eyes, batty ears, and a disgusting rag for clothing. Its brows were knit together in what Isla could only presume was worry.

“Where’s mother?” was all she could manage to say. The creature’s sympathetic gaze bored through her as it wrung its hand. 

“The little miss should be in bed, her fever is too high.” It shepherded her back inside, closing the door behind it. 

“Dobby shouldn’t be here, but there was a commotion, and Master sent Dobby to see what was the matter.”

Isla began to struggle, where was Mother? Where was Father? What was this strange Dobby creature, and why was he in her home?

Dobby hushed her, “Please, little miss. You need your rest. You are gravely ill.”

Before she could protest again, there was a sharp  _ thwack _ on the door, and it flew open. In strode the most terrifying man Isla had ever seen, with straight, silvery hair and a sharp face, accentuated by his wicked black walking cane.

“ _ What is the meaning of this? _ ” the man all but hissed. Dobby shook like a leaf, but didn’t leave her side as he answered.

“Dobby found her here--her fever is very bad indeed.”

The man studied her, looking down as if Isla were a stray cat instead of a person. “You’re trespassing here, muggle. It’s within my rights to kill you, you know.”

Tears slid down her cheeks. Everything hurt so much, and all she could think of was Mother and Father, “P-please sir. Where is my mother? She’s sick. Father went to get medicine.” Her voice trailed off as sobs began to wrack in her chest.

Dobby mumbled something she couldn’t hear through her tears. After a few moments of her crying, the man cleared his throat. “Your mother was Genevieve Fawley?”

_ Was? _ Isla forced herself to look up at the man, the one she knew her father had warned her about. His cruel sneer from moments before had iced over into something that could have resembled sympathy. “Please tell me where she is.”

The man took a step forward and for what felt like the first time in her whole life, Isla  _ screamed _ . Screamed for her missing parents, for the pain of the fever threatening to send her into darkness, and to expel the man standing before her to tell her a truth she couldn’t hear. Suddenly, gale-force winds whipped around her, shattering all the windows and knocking the man back. The edges of her vision started to blur, and yet she screamed until there was no air left in her lungs. And then she let the blackness take her.

The next time she woke, the air was all wrong, smelling of mint instead of earth. Her normally scratchy sheets had been replaced by soft, clean-feeling linens. Her lumpy pillow now seemed to be made of goosefeathers. And next to this alien bed sat a beautiful,  _ severe _ looking woman with equally pale blonde hair and blue eyes to match. The cruel man was nowhere to be seen.

“Do you know where you are, child?” The woman’s voice was clear and cold. Like the morning after a blizzard.

Isla spoke, hoarse and hardly recognizable. “In the house beyond the wood.”

“And do you know how you got here?

She shook her head, “All I remember is a man and his creature coming to my house in the middle of the night. There was a windstorm and I screamed before I fainted.”

The woman gave her the oddest look, as if Isla were missing something obvious. Dobby entered with a tray of food, his eyes trained carefully downward. “There’s no easy way to tell you this, so I’m just going to come out with it, You may eat, but do not interrupt.”

Despite her every instinct telling her otherwise, Isla reached forward obediently, grabbing a piece of seedy toast. She wondered to herself how long she’d been out, for her stomach to growl this ferociously.

“Your parents are dead. It’s difficult to say if it was the fever or the cold that took them, but my husband found them lying together in the snow just short of your hovel.”

The shock Isla should have felt at this admission was terrifyingly absent; instead, she felt calm, if not a little sleepy. How was that possible? She dug and dug inside herself for the grief she knew needed to be there and found only quiet, subdued peace.

The woman continued, “As it turns out, your mother was Genevieve Fawley--a member of a noble pureblood wizarding family. She was...a school chum of my husband and I. After we left school, she married your father, and we lost touch completely. How you ended up squatting on our grounds unbeknownst to us is a mystery I suppose we’ll never have the answer to. But the fact remains, you’re Genevieve’s child, and remnant of a very prestigious bloodline.”

Isla’s head was spinning, “A bloodline of wizards? Like in fairy tales?”

The woman looked as if Isla had slapped her in the face, but whatever was keeping Isla calm also kept her from being afraid. That moment was forever seared in her mind as the last moment she spent in the world as she knew it. The bluebells that grew in spring would no longer be the most magical thing in her life. 


End file.
